While on Santa Cruz, I am staying in a home with a host family. The family consists of the husband and wife, their daughter who is about 12 years old and their 4 year old son who is blind and does little more than lie in a playpin all day and night. The woman of the house works as the human resources director at the hospital and was kind enough to offer me a room in her home during my time volunteering at the hospital. The family is always very nice to me; they serve me breakfast, and lunch if I decide to come home during the lunch hour, and they offer me dinner, which I have yet to have at the home since I always have dinner with friends I have met on the island. Her house appears to be an average home on the island. There are definitely better ones on the island, and even though I have not seen any that are worse, I’m sure they exist.
The front of the home appears quite nice. Decorated with (actually constructed out of) rocks. And there is a dirt path leading from the road to the wooden front door. Inside the home are two bedrooms, a family room, a kitchen, and an eating area. However, the home is almost like one big room. There are no doors, only curtains to cover the doorways. And the walls don’t go all the way up to the ceiling. And by ceiling, I am referring to the roof of metal sheets that lie on top of the 2x4 rafters. So there isn’t much privacy for the 12 year old girl that lives in the second bedroom.
The side of the house has separate living quarters in which I stay. I have my own entrance, bedroom, and another living room which only has a table, a chair, and a randomly placed stove.
The house, and the neighbors’, are built on top of lava rock. Concrete has been poured over the rock to act as the floor of the home, but the real foundation is the lava rock. The floor of the home is, for the most part, even. I have not placed a ball on the floor but am sure it would roll one way or another. The bare concrete is the floor inside the home. There is no carpet or tile, simply concrete. I do not walk barefoot, for I know the bottom of my feet will be black within 10 seconds of walking on the floor here. I also do not use the bathroom or shower barefoot.
The bathroom is quite interesting. And by interesting I mean the closest I have experienced using a bathroom like this was at camp when I was 12 years old. To get to the bathroom, I have to walk outside to the back of their home. The bathroom does have four concrete walls, a flushing toilet, a sink, and a shower head, all of which I am thankful for. The door to the bathroom is constructed out of a thin plywood. There are a few holes in the plywood and when the door is swung closed it is never actually shut. The door isn’t as wide as the opening in the wall, so when it’s closed there is a large gap between it and the wall. Since I share the bathroom with the family, I glance through the hole and the gap when I approach it to see if someone else is occupying the bathroom. And I know from experience that the other members of the family do the same thing.
When taking a shower I try to use the water wisely. Water is a precious commodity on the islands and should not be wasted. But showering with little water is easy to do since the water is cold. When I first turn on the shower, I stand to the side and put my hand in the water hoping the water will become warm but knowing it won’t. I quickly and relunctantly wet my hair, then turn off the water and shampoo my hair, lather my body with soap, turn the cold water back on and rinse off. I try to shower during the day when the air is still warm; if I shower at night the air is considerably cooler and I always get goosebumps. The good thing about having the experience of always having a cold shower is the realization of how much water people in the States waste when showering. I heard from a tour guide the average person living in the Galapagos uses 5 liters of water when showering, and the average North American uses 70 liters! What a huge difference. I think when I get back to the States I will continue to use the method of turning off the water when washing myself. Anyways, back to the home:
The bathroom also smells terrible. It took me a day to figure out the smell resembles formaldehyde. I’m not sure what causes the bathroom to smell like my gross anatomy lab. A friend told me her bathroom here on the island also stinks as a result of the unclean water. But I think the stench in the bathroom I use is coming from something besides the water. It could be coming from the drain in the middle of the bathroom floor, or from the paint on the walls, or from the mold growing on the back of wood door. I doubt I’ll find the source, nor do I really care to find the source. I would just like it to go away.
Spoiled Little Princess
So, I, a privledged female from the United States (let alone Boca Raton), am temporarily living in conditions similar to the majority of the world. Am I going to act spoiled or be a whimp if I move out of my current home and into a better one? My host family is so nice to me that I will feel really guilty if I move out early. But I feel that I have reason to move out.
Five out of seven nights I came home to find a huge rat scurring up my bedroom wall and through the cracks between the wall and the roof. Today, while I was sitting on my bed writing in my journal, I saw a small mouse roaming across my floor. I scarred it away a few times but it kept coming back. Every evening when I come home I find new animal droppings in my room, sometimes on the table, sometimes on a shelf, and sometimes on my bed. They are tiny little droppings and I think they belong to the rat I see everyday, or the mouse I saw today. I don’t think they belong to the humongus gekoes I found in my room yesterday, and don’t know of any other animal roaming around in my room. This can’t be sanitary. Rats carry all sorts of diseases and their droppings can carry deadly diseases. But I think to myself, if this family and many other families are living inside their homes with these same encounters, I can surely muster up the mental strength to live in these conditions for a single month. I just hope I won’t catch any illness while here.
After six days of living here, I’m starting to get used to the conditions. And the rat doesn’t scare me as much as it once did. I still hesitate when I open my door when I come home and I turn on the light as quickly as I can so it will scare the rat away. The past two nights I slept with my bedroom light on, hoping the light will keep the rat out of my room while I sleep. To avoid smelling the stench of the bathroom, I brush my teeth outside and spit my toothpaste onto the dirt or lava rock, sometimes having to avoid spitting on the chickens walking outside.
My friends on the island all think I should move out, and I do too. But I hate to disappoint my host family. Also, I don’t know if they really need the money I’m paying to stay in their home. Which by the way is the best deal in town ($150 a month with breakfast and lunch), but with these living conditions I think it should be the best deal in town. My host family knows there is a rat living in the home. Two nights I screamed when I saw the rat. The first time was late at night with only the grandma awake in the living room. She heard me scream and said “que eso? El rato?” (what’s the matter, the rat?), and the other time I screamed, the mom asked me what was the matter and came over to my room when I responded it was a big rat. She didn’t think much of it and thought I was silly for screaming.
Tomorrow, during my free time (I don’t have to work until 4pm), I plan to move into a clean hostel down the street. I’m just not sure how I’m going to break the news to my host family and hope it wont be awkward when I see my host mom in the hospital from time to time.
